The First PMI-SP Credential Holders Were Named
At e-learning, training and consultancy services Turlon & Associates, almost every project is affected by schedule compression, according to Mr. Dillion.
He relies on PMI’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), as well as estimation control and fast-tracking to deal with shortened schedules and has a motto of keeping the schedule simple from the start of the project.
“My first rule is to keep it simple. Far too often schedules are complex and intricate items that cannot be managed. What any project manager requires is a good schedule baseline that is both flexible—manages change—and understandable, and the simpler it is the better it is,” he says.
Preservation of the project scope is also important. For that, Mr. Dillon suggests a good functional work breakdown structure.
“Without this, scope tends to drift and what invariably happens is a schedule that fits the timeline but has gaps on the functional and product side,” he says.
Mr. Ondiappan says there are two techniques for dealing with schedule compression—fast tracking and crashing. Project managers can fast track the project from the start and achieve goals sooner than expected, or crash the projects with additional resources.
Of all the advice and tips available, Mr. Ondiappan prefers fast tracking.
“Try to fast track the project rather than crash it because it is a proactive approach,” he says adding that both approaches, if done properly, enable one to maintain the project scope.
Mr. Ondiappan, who earned his PMP credential in 2002 and recently earned the PMI Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP)SM credential, believes that he sees projects “from a 30,000-foot level” and that this is his advantage to dealing with schedule compression.
Where schedule compression is generally viewed as a negative thing, it has helped his company launch our new products early to the market.
MasConsulting S.A. leverages schedule compression as an asset.
When it comes to dealing with schedule compression, Mr. Lledó’s team tries the following three techniques:
- Incorporate the best talents all together into one project, and once they complete that project, they are moved to another.
- Assign individuals to one project at a time, but have them work on different project tasks simultaneously.
- Avoid long meetings. Spend a maximum of one hour to solve a problems and a maximum of 20 minutes discussing project status.
“Using the same scarce resources, our organization now can [handle] more projects because of schedule compression. This means more profits, and our clients are seeing that our company gives a faster added value to them,” Mr. Lledó says.
Mr. Lledó believes it is just as important to communicate the value of this skill.
Schedule compression often impacts other parts of a project and project managers have to know how to deal with that and be able to express it to the client, Ms. Mitchell says.
“Think of it as a spider web, as you pull one string, another one moves,” she says.
Ms. Mitchell says that her company deals with schedule compression using a mixture of tracking and crashing and that earning her PMP credential in 2005 has given her the credibility to speak about it with stakeholders.
She often explains to clients the impacts on cost and risk that schedule compression has and believes that her understanding of the matter comes from the discipline around the nine knowledge areas of PMI’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide).
“Schedule is often the most critical part of the project. If you can’t deliver on schedule you are not delivering on value,” she says.
